Bed Wetting General Information

This artice answers the following questions:

Is your child completely potty trained during the day, but continues to wet his/her bed at night?

Or has your child been completely potty trained for a while and now all of sudden he or she has started wetting his or her bed night?

First thing you should know is that you and your child are not alone.

Bed wetting is a common problem that affects 5-6 million children. At the age of 5 years, 15-20% of children are still wetting at night 2-3 times per month. At the age of 6 about 15% are still wetting and 10% of children over 7 year of age are still wetting. These rates go down only by about 15% per year without treatment. At the age of 15, about 1-2% of adolescents still wet at night.

There are two types of bed wetting or the term used by the medical profession is enuresis (EN-YOU-REE-SIS).

1. Primary nocturnal enuresis is the term used when children have never achieved night time control and are wetting more than 2-3 times per month.
2. Secondary nocturnal enuresis is when a child has been dry at night for 6 months and then begins to wet again.

Children wet at night simply because they have to urinate and there are many reasons why some children have to urinate at night, while others don't. Once, you and your child's pediatrician figure out reasons for bed wetting , you can decide on a treatment plan for bed wetting .

Common treatment options for bed wetting:

• Behavioral Therapy:
Motivation Programs, Guided Imagery and Hypnotherapy are all form of Behavioral Therapies that can help with treatment of bed wetting.
• Conditional Therapy: Moisture Alarms (or more commonly know as Bed Wetting Alarms), Retention Control Training and Night Lifting are forms of Conditional Therapy
• Medication: As a last resort or to provide symptomatic relief from bed wetting, your child's pediatrician may provide some bed wetting medications.